The Second Mrs. Hockaday - Susan Rivers

Written by Susan Rivers
Read by James Patrick Cronin, Julie McKay
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: HighBridge
Release date: January 10, 2017
Duration: 07:05:21

When Major Gryffth Hockaday is called to the front lines of the Civil War, his new bride is left to care for her husband s three-hundred-acre farm and infant son.

Placidia, a mere teenager herself living far from her family and completely unprepared to run a farm or raise a child, must endure the darkest days of the war on her own. By the time Major Hockaday returns two years later, Placidia is bound for jail, accused of having borne a child in his absence and murdering it. What really transpired in the two years he was away?

Inspired by a true incident, this saga unfolds with gripping intensity, conjuring the era with uncanny immediacy. Amid the desperation of wartime, Placidia sees the social order of her Southern homeland unravel. As she comes to understand how her own history is linked to one runaway slave, her perspective on race and family are upended. A love story, a story of racial divide, and a story of the South as it fell in the war, “The Second Mrs. Hockaday” reveals how this generation and the next began to see their world anew.”

“James Patrick Cronin and Julie McKay give sensitive, understated performances in Rivers’s compelling historical novel, based on true events. The Civil War story of Confederate Major Gryffth Hockaday and his 17-year-old wife, Placidia, unfolds mostly through letters and diary entries. Cronin and McKay make each exchange leap to life. After two days of marriage, Hockaday is called to duty, leaving his young wife to run his estate and care for his child from a previous marriage. In the second year of his absence, Placidia has a child, but the child dies. When Hockaday returns, he accuses his wife of adultery and murder. Cronin and McKay deliver Rivers’s subtle revelations of period biases, rampant prejudice, and the strength of a woman who endures almost unimaginable hardships.”—AudioFile